Friday, Sep. 12, 2008

Airport may have new tenant in a month

City in negotiations with possible occupant

Los Baños Municipal Airport may have a new tenant within the next 30 days.

Public Works Director Dwayne Chisam said that he is in negotiations with "a couple" businesses interested in locating at the Los Baños airport.

Chisam said the city is busy drafting an agreement with one of them. He said within a month's time the agreement should be finalized and the company will be able to move into the airport.

The facility has fallen on difficult economic times.

The airport is projected to have $286,789 in expenditures and bring in $268,234 in revenue this fiscal year. The facility began the year $79,165 in the negative. By the end of the 2008-2009 budget cycle a $97,720 shortfall is anticipated.

In February the airport lost its major tenant when Silver State Helicopters, a Las Vegas-based company, closed after filing a bankruptcy petition. Silver State was leasing office and hangar space from the city for $2,187 per month. It also paid the city an undisclosed, and likely varying, amount of funding for use of aviation fuel.

Chisam said the funding shortfalls are made up by money from the city's general fund.

In May Councilman Joe Sousa and Councilwoman Anna Brooks proposed taking a more critical look at the airport's necessity.

"What I've been thinking about for quite some time now is how do we turn that asset into a value that benefits this entire community," Sousa said during a budget workshop. "Can Los Baños or the Westside afford to be without an airport? The answer , at some point I thought it was no, now it is yes."

Brooks has said the facility is located on a valuable piece of property and the city should explore the possibility of moving the airport so the land could be available for other uses.

Mayor Tommy Jones seems to agree with his fellow council members.

"I don't see right now where the airport is serving the quantity of people where it's useful," Jones said. "I want whatever is in the greatest benefit of the whole community."

The Los Baños Municipal Airport has 18 hangars being used and five active land leases.